What Does He Want?
by Submariner
Summary: House screws up. An exploration of House's aims in life through a gen story. HW friendship. My first fic. I've decided to continue this on a few more chapters.
1. Chapter 1

"Let's see… I heard a song about this once… Oh, yeah. Sing it with me – _Plop Plop, Fizz Fizz, Oh what a relief it is!" _House hoped that if he sang it again, the frowning clinic patient might just join in. But no hope of that – the guy opened his mouth, but instead of "plop plop" he demanded a second opinion. "It's an ulcer! I want a biopsy!"

"Well, Mr…" looking down at the chart, "…Hamburglar. Ironic. What's today, Wednesday? 49-cent cheeseburger day at Micky-D's. Judging by the mustard under your fingernails and the ketchup on your cuff, you open up the burgers and scrape off the onions – the only part of the burger, by the way, that has any nutritional value. Judging by your current state of abdominal pain, the amount of American cheese stuck in your molars, and the fact that your stomachache isn't accompanied by any other symptoms of, well, any health problem, I'd say you probably ate, what, five? Six?"

"Eight."

"OK. But the fact that you want a biopsy to check for ulcers means you're an idiot. And you're stressed. Actually, you're stressed about being stressed. The American dream. Fueled by America's Number One Fast Food Chain. Relax, guy. Take a jog. Stay away from the burgers and you and I will never have to see each other again." With that, House stalked out of the exam room, logged out of the clinic, even though it was ten minutes early, and caught the elevator up to his office without looking back.

Waiting for him on the desk of his empty office were two things. House grunted down into his chair, pulled his legs onto the corner of the desk and dug in. Wilson had scrawled a note: "From the Desk of James Wilson, MD, Oncologist. GGW Tonite, 8. Order pizza. I got beer. –W" Despite the fact that it was almost entirely illegible to the average human being, House could easily decipher his friend's writing, and he made a mental note to make fun of the fact that Wilson spelled "tonight" with such a ridiculously unnecessary abbreviation (it only saves one letter!). Because House didn't have any plans for the evening, or any evening for that matter, a night with Wilson watching a new Girls Gone Wild DVD was pretty cool with him.

The second thing on his desk was a pastel blue something that looked suspiciously like a greeting card envelope. It said "Dr. House" on the front in girly, loopy handwriting. Flipping it over, he noted the Hallmark symbol and prepared to roll his eyes at whatever he saw inside. It was a thank-you card. Miss Manners and the greeting card industry would have us believe that formally thanking someone for rendering a service or giving a gift makes that someone just about happy enough to wet their pants. House wasn't like that. He opened the card. "Thank you for finding out what I had and curing it. I was so scared. Of you, mostly. (Not! Ha ha)," the (presumably) girl had written. "Who actually still says 'Not!'" House smirked to himself. He kept reading: "You believed I was sick when none of the other doctors did. Thank you for looking deeper. Thank you for being you. Love, Mandy."

Mandy… 16-year-old girl with Lyme Disease. Lyme is hard to diagnose, especially in its early stages. Mandy had been dismissed as a hypochondriac by a few other nurses and doctors. She lived in foster care and had come to the free clinic by herself. He couldn't remember having any conversations with her that would move her to "love" him, but that had been a good day. On days like that one, when Cuddy hadn't harassed him too much, when his leg pain was down to a four or five, when he had a solved case under his belt, clinic duty was more bearable. He liked to flatter himself that he occasionally found cool or mysterious cases in the clinic that most other doctors would have missed. So maybe he had been uncharacteristically nice to her. He doubted it, but anything was possible.

Today was not such a good day. He hadn't felt too good, hadn't wanted lunch even though Wilson insisted on buying. And, apparently, Cuddy didn't like it when he came in two hours late. Actually he was three and a half hours late, but two hours later than his normal lateness. She also apparently didn't appreciate his failure to finish his journal article on the Bubonic Plague girl in time to meet the hospital's publishing quota. Since he didn't have an active case, she put him in the clinic for the rest of the afternoon. At least since returning to his office, nothing too unpleasant had happened. The leg pain that had kept him up all night was finally ebbing away a little as he stretched out for a nap. He didn't have to be home till a few minutes to 8 anyway.

"Thank you for being you," he echoed dully to himself, drifting hazily between sleep and wake. "No problem there. No effort. Nothing I do is in my control. The leg, Cuddy, Wilson. The team. Pain. Everyone wants something…"

Four hours later, he woke, stiff from sleeping too long in one position, the edge of the desk having left a sizable reddened dent on his left calf. 8:11. Oops, eleven minutes late, plus transit time. Well, Wilson still had his key. Wilson was probably on edge right now, hovering near House's phone, trying to force himself not to call and check up on him, but worried and angry that he was late. And he was probably drinking up all the good beer. House swallowed two pills and considered his options. He should call Wilson and tell him what happened. Innocent enough, he just slept too long. "But why should I have to explain myself, make excuses, why should I even have to meet him at all?" His mood had not been improved by the nap, and he decided to do what he wanted to do, and screw Wilson and everyone else. A trip to Murphy's, that would be cool. His favorite dive for the last few years. A place that hadn't thrown him out yet. Yet.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

House found himself thinking about Hamburglar guy as he limped toward his bike, trying to work out the stiffness without reawakening the pain that had managed to stay at bay so far. He wondered if Hamburglar guy ever got any. Well, he was wearing a wedding ring but that didn't necessarily mean anything. Unless he was like Wilson, that is. He didn't want to think about how the guy probably got way more than he did. It was hard enough to acknowledge that Wilson did.

Wilson. That guy, just another mother. Another person telling him what to do. His leg told him to call a cab and go home to relax and watch TV. But instead House climbed onto his bike and zipped away toward Murphy's. He smirked, the closest thing to a smile he could muster after a day like today, when he wondered if he'd see Hamburglar there trying to score with the ladies. At least the guy had less destructive stress-relief methods than he himself did.

The parking lot was kind of empty. House parked in a normal spot next to another bike. No faceless blue guy in a wheelchair was telling him where to park tonight. The warm smoky bar whiff practically clobbered him as he struggled through the heavy door. No one he knew would be there. Cameron definitely never came to dirty places like this. Chase, who knew? And Foreman was the fancy restaurant, night at home type of guy. Wilson came here with House a few times a month, but Wilson was currently otherwise engaged…

Call brand Scotch on the rocks, maybe to move on to Guinness a little later. He could never remember – was it don't drink liquor, then beer, or was it don't drink beer, then liquor? Parked next to a stupid looking plumber or whatever he was, House surveyed the crowd for possible scuffle-mates and popped another pill. "Poor liver," he thought aloud grimly. "Not you," he snarled to the plumber. "Although you're not looking too hot yourself," as the plumber struggled to focus his gaze on House.

Recent studies have shown that people who drink a lot of alcohol but also drink a lot of coffee have far less liver damage than those who drink the same amount of alcohol but not much coffee. House had examined the study, which was about as credible as most popular medical studies on a limited control group usually are, but he liked them odds. The only person who drank as much coffee as he did in the morning was Chase. House needed to break through the early-morning narcotics buzz and sleepiness. He wondered what Chase's reason was.

A youngish man with brown hair entered the bar, struggling to push aside the heavy door, head down. Wilson? House looked up with a mixture of hope and disgust. Nope, not him, too much facial hair and not enough boyish good looks.

Suddenly House wanted to leave. He hadn't had so much that he couldn't safely ride his bike the short distance home. Maybe he should cut his losses. "Being you," being himself, did it have to mean being alone? He used to think so. It had always been that way, even when he was in a relationship. And as much as he denied it, he knew the pills made it worse. Well, not worse, but easier. But Wilson was the only one he didn't want to push away.

Why start now?

Because Wilson didn't want to believe him when he said the pain was getting worse. Because Wilson was a trainwreck waiting to happen. Because Wilson was too pushy, too preachy.

But at the end of the day, it was Wilson who knew him, who cut through the crap.

9:47. House downed a glass of ice water, paid his tab, said goodbye to the plumber after nearly successfully convincing him that he owed House ten dollars, and made his way back home. Wilson's silver car was still parked right next to the door. His mind told him to keep driving around the block. His leg told him to give it a rest. But House wanted to go in and hang out with his friend, and so he did.


	3. Chapter 3

8:49 the next morning…

_She loves you, yeah yeah yeah, She loves you, yeah yeah --_

House pounded the snooze button before the moptops repeated themselves again. The only time he ever slept until his alarm went off was after a night of drunken debauchery. Turns out alcohol is a depressant.

Trying to tell himself he didn't have a headache, he reached for his morning dose and then got up, shuffling/hopping caneless to the bathroom. An hour later he was contemplating breakfast. The crucial hangover morning threshold had been reached. Did he forgo breakfast entirely, like his stomach wanted him to do, or did he eat something heavy, the greasier the better? The thought of pizza or a sausage biscuit turned his stomach, but he knew it was the only way he would have a halfway decent morning at work. Good thing he didn't have any big cases right now. He'd probably be in the clinic in the afternoon again. Groaning, he decided on a sausage biscuit and, reaching for sunglasses and helmet, walked out the door and to his bike, contemplating where to stop.

Another hour later, House struggled open the front door and walked past Cuddy's office to the elevators, still wearing his sunglasses, trying to blend in with the woodwork and not bounce too much and attract attention. He thought briefly of those nature shows with the camouflage bugs with fake eyes. Cuddy. _If I thought you'd screwed up because you were drunk, I would have fired you. _House once said that to Chase when he claimed his mistake was the result of a bad hangover. The one person who had the power to fire him couldn't know about this current example of what appeared dangerously similar to a lack of professional responsibility.

It wasn't till he was at the door to the conference room that House remembered that Wilson, whom he'd called and hung out with late into the night after he'd left the bar, ought to be in much the same condition as House. Wilson was another person to avoid until after lunch.

The night before, laughing and drinking at home with Wilson as a cheesy horror flick with half-naked cheerleaders paraded across the TV screen (twice – they replayed the DVD when it went back to the menu), House had everything he wanted. Good friend, for once not nagging him, and for some reason not bailing out early, pleading that it was a school night. Good scotch, good feeling, or lack thereof.

Inside the conference room, Chase and Cameron were doing what suspiciously looked like paperwork.

"Shouldn't one of you be taking care of my mail?" House asked by way of greeting. "And where's Foreman? Downstairs shining shoes for some extra crack money?" Not even pausing to acknowledge the outrageousness of that last question, House turned and limped through the door into his own office, not turning on the lights.

Just then, Foreman appeared. It seemed as if he'd been waiting in the hallway for House to show up.

"House, we've got a case. A referral from Princeton General, from Marks in the ER. A guy who presented at the clinic yesterday with abdominal pain and was sent home. He had a bleed in the stomach lining and respiratory complications."

House froze. Acting casual and battling a sudden wave of hangover-induced nausua, he asked, "What idiot released him?"

Foreman consulted the file in his hand, and for a fleeting moment House thought back to Hamburglar guy.

"Johnson. It was around 3 yesterday."

Relieved, House reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. The nausea passed. "Well, gimme the file, and go get some images of the guy's stomach. And a chest x-ray. Those jokers at Princeton General couldn't find a third nipple."

_Close call. But not close enough. Instadiagnosis wins again!_ House thought.

After lunch, still waiting on test results from non-Hamburglar guy, House decided to round Cuddy off at the pass and begin his shift in the clinic uncoerced. He was really feeling much better, or at least his head and stomach were. His leg hurt like a bitch, of course, right on target with the ever-so-slight upward slope the pain had taken these past few weeks, and listening to mindless slackjaws for a couple of hours would be a welcome distraction.

Juggling a Thermos cup of coffee and a patient file in his left hand, House took a deep breath and pushed into the exam room with his left hip. Just as the elderly woman opened her mouth to speak, his pager came to life, shrilly announcing its presence on his left pants pocket. "911 Ulcer Foreman" it read. Without a word, House dropped the patient file on the counter, about-faced and strode to the elevator. This could be an interesting development, and probably didn't involve Metamucil. With an impatient glance toward the door to the stairwell, House waited one full minute for the elevator to come down.

As he neared the room of the Diagnostic Department's newest patient, House blinked. Through the frenzy of activity in the room, he could nearly make out the patient's face and body type. Coming to the doorway, he saw him – it was Hamburglar.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: I don't know much about medicine. It's not that central to the plot in this particular story, so please overlook any errors here or in future chapters. Hope you're enjoying this story, which is my first House fic.

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"For someone who never screws up, this was pretty big. I mean, it's like when …"

"I sense a metaphor coming, Foreman. You know how I feel about that. And, seriously, do you even check my office before you start in on me?" House delivered from the door between his office and the conference room.

"All I'm saying is, this guy could be really screwed up, and you didn't even take the time to sign the chart in the clinic."

"Remember what happened to those guys at the big death-star meeting when they questioned Vader's methods?" With that question, House approached the white board and started listing symptoms. "No matter whose fault this is, a quick diagnosis will solve everyone's problems. Ready? Go."

The initial differential session was short, as usual, and tests were assigned. The fellows got up to leave.

It's impossible to know what people are thinking about as you pass them on the street. They could be contemplating sex with poodles, or what to have for dinner with the new borscht recipe. Cameron, Chase and Foreman each kept a poker face, hiding their true feelings.

Cameron was worried. She was trying to figure out what could have caused House to be so irresponsible toward this patient – he passed off a quick diagnosis with no supporting evidence, and then passed the chart off onto someone else without even signing it. Someone at the nurse's station had screwed up and filled in the wrong doctor's name. While House was often distant (a euphemism for snobbishly brusque) with clinic patients, it wasn't like him to do something like this, was it? Was this just a minor screw-up or symptomatic of an underlying problem?

Chase was familiar enough with a situation like this to just hunker down, offer quiet support to House, and try to keep the patient from kicking off like Kayla had. House had supported him then, in his own way. But what troubled him was the seeming absence of a "mitigating factor" – House hadn't been sick, he hadn't received any shocking phone calls.

Foreman was a little pissed. Chase's job had been in jeopardy for doing very nearly the same thing House had done. House had been a little off his game these past few weeks, and Foreman wasn't sure he would let it slide. He was sure House wouldn't let anything slide if he, Foreman, began to slip up.

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House could never tell anyone about his "mitigating factor." No one could ever know. He would be fired, and no hospital would hire him unconditionally ever again. Increasingly, being himself at work meant being someone who hid, who was secretive. He wasn't sure he liked that.

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"He's always done stuff like this. Hell, he diagnoses people at the bus stop, at the bar."

"It's a little more serious this time, James," Cuddy said as she agitatedly stabbed at her cherry tomato. "Those people are not his patients, they're not seeking his help. Look, I wanted to talk to you about this because you know him. Is something else going on?"

Wilson had thought it was a little weird when Cuddy had asked him to lunch. They had even gone to an actual restaurant instead of the cafeteria. When it became clear that she only wanted to talk about House, he couldn't help feeling a little disappointed. But in the same way that most people love thinking and talking about themselves, Wilson actually loved thinking and talking about House. Cuddy had come to the right place.

"I'm not sure," Wilson said noncommittally. "Since I moved out, he's been a little distant. He'll come over to my new place, but he doesn't invite me over as often." He felt a little uncomfortable going into detail, like he was breaching a sort of unspoken trust between him and House, but he continued. "I think he's having an increased level of pain."

"You still think it's psychosomatic?" she asked.

"In some degree, yes. He seems a little frustrated about something."

"I know this sounds a little junior high, but could you try and find out what that something is? I can't have him work here when his mind is somewhere else."

Wilson hesitated. Cuddy added, "it would help all of us."

"Fine, but I think you may be overreacting to this whole thing. It was a minor mistake, a fluke."

"Yeah, well, with House, there are no flukes."

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Hamburglar guy… Bill McAllister was his actual name. Bill McAllister struggled to suck in air, sore from his stomach operation.

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5:57 pm: He only did it on bad nights, or bad mornings. Hamburglar guy – that morning, around 4, had been bad. He thought he'd be OK to go to work. After all, he did have a medical degree. Unfortunately, not even the pope is infallible.

Time to call it a day. Wilson's figure traveled from left to right outside the glass, briefly out of sight as he passed the frosted glass of the door. The fact that he didn't pass to the other side and appear again in a reasonably short period of time meant that he had in fact stopped at the door and was about to enter. Sure enough, he did.

"Can I come over and watch monster trucks with you tonight?" Wilson asked, tone casual.

"Only if you bring the good beer. And only if you don't mind the huge erotic poster of your mom that I just had framed above the mantel," House replied.

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End file.
